Agile SEO: Building a Continuous Improvement Machine for SEO

This was a presentation for the conference EmpowerB2B, about how to kick off an SEO program and keep it rolling in an agile manner.

See the video presentation and the transcript of it here: https://thegray.company/blog/agile-seo-101-building-a-continuous-improvement-machine-for-seo

Transcript

1. Agile SEO: Building a Continuous Improvement Machine for SEO Tory Gray @GrayDotCo #Empower2021
2. Why SEO? Compound Interest Simple Interest
3. Dominate with an SEO Moat Foundation/Ross Simmonds: https://bit.ly/3eGB8e2
4. Continuous Improvement Machine for SEO IS NOT IS • A tool (e.g. Yoast) you can “set and forget” • Spammy text “An SEO walks into a bar, pub…” • For Google • Growth hacking • A silo • Strategic • Relative to your online competitors (SEO is a race!) • Ongoing time & effort that you measure and improve A framework for data-driven, iterative growth.
5. Ideally, you’ll learn... What’s Needed to Launch a SEO Program (and What’s Not Needed) A Process for Improving SEO Results in an Agile Fashion
6. Where to start...
7. Keyword Strategy for Core Landing Pages • Use good tools, data to learn what users are seeking • Pick keywords that are accurate, brand-aligned, and have opportunity • Organize keywords/pages by their “intent” (map them in a Matrix) • Craft metadata and onpage copy for these pages with this data set in mind 1 Templates: https://thegray.company/empower
8. Strategic Content • What subjects/keywords have you not already covered? ◦ Different content for different personas ◦ Review pain points ◦ Target the various customer funnel stages (TOFU head terms vs. BOFU longtail ones) ◦ Create How Tos, FAQs, documentation & case studies ◦ Thought leadership/perspective pieces • Focus on: ◦ Where you provide unique value (UVPs), or you can fill a market gap ◦ Experimentation & strategic bets ◦ Building comprehensive context & authority for your subject matter • Publish stuff you are proud of 2
9. Best Practices • There IS a place for best practices • It’s a place to start and improve upon over time 3
10. Rinse & Repeat • Execute, execute, execute. • Collect data & evaluate the results. • Refine your process. Work out the kinks. 4
11. Watch your SEO funnel & KPIs SEO is slowest at the beginning, so watch for leading indicators to ensure things are moving in the right direction:
12. What this is NOT NO Bias for Action Move Fast and Break Things 6 Months of Strategy + No Action
13. Next level...
14. Your SEO Strategy Inputs Defined Business Goals TAM/Keyword Universe Data & Results Competitive Audits Website Audits Stakeholders
15. Defined, Prioritized Business Objectives
16. Define Opportunity: Keyword Universe/TAM • What is your “Digital” Total Addressable Market? ◦ How frequently is your target subject matter searched for, and clicked on? ◦ How much traffic, and revenue, could that translate to? • What do you stand to gain? • What do you stand to lose - if a competitor captures this instead of you?
17. Competition Analysis: Current & Investment Current: • Audit your competitor’s site(s.) What are they doing better (and worse) than you? Investment: • How many butts do they have in critical seats, and where are they hiring? • What are they building? (tools, content, features) • Did they just raise money? • What results/revenue does that drive for them? Templates: https://thegray.company/empower
18. (Own) Site Analysis: What to Evaluate Tier I Accessibility & Indexability Tier II Trade-off of Value vs Effort Do you let search engines “in the door”? When you do, do you allow them to index your content? Do you make it worthwhile for a search engines to do this work? Potential Areas / Activities • Technical SEO / Technical SEO Audit • JS Access / JS Audit • Site Architecture / IA • UX/UI & User Accessibility / Usability Testing Potential Areas / Activities • Quality (Content Audit, On-page Audit) • Rendering (Mobility & UX/UI Issues & JS Effort Level) • Performance (Core Vitals Audit, GSC Audit) • Backlinks (Link Building Audit, Internal Linking Audit) • Added Value (E-A-T Audit, Schema Audit) • SERP Features Opportunities • Local, International, Niche Aspects
19. Your Data & Results • How well is your funnel growing? Where/when are users dropping off? • How are you ranking overall, and for your target terms? ◦ How are you doing relative to competitors for those same target terms? • Is your keyword footprint growing? • How quickly are you scaling (quality) content? • Does your content address all target personas, at all stages of the customer funnel? Where are there gaps you can fill? • Are you accomplishing your goals? ◦ If not, why not, and what do you do about it? ◦ If so… what’s next to con’t the amplification trend?
20. … One Last Critical Addition Consult your stakeholders, and prioritize those efforts that also support: • Brand Strategy • Content/Editorial • Email Marketing • Social Media Marketing • Sales • Customer Service • Product/Engineering • Data Science • Etc.
21. Combine your inputs to create your plan Rinse & repeat every 6-12 months (or as needed). • Pull in the latest & greatest objectives, strategies and KPIs • Latest results • Updated, timely audits • Don’t forget to CONNECT THE DOTS… what tactical work are you doing & why? What strategies and objectives does that work align to? Templates: https://thegray.company/empower
22. Keep going...
24. Thank You! Connect with us! Site: https://thegray.company Templates: https://thegray.company/empower Social: @GrayDotCo Special Thanks @samTorresATL @techSEOWomen